Replacing bourbon in a cheesecake recipe

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Replacing bourbon in a cheesecake recipe

I've been making this bourbon butter pecan cheesecake. The base is a mixture of pecans, graham cracker crumbs and butter. The filling is flavored with caramel and three tablespoons of bourbon. Pecans are placed on top of whipped cream rosettes. It's good for bourbon lovers, but would be very good without, since the cheesecake has this nice caramel flavor. I'd like to try it without the bourbon, but don't know what to substitute without changing the flavor of the cake. I don't mean another liquor (since I don't know what would work, and the booze taste is very strong because of the amount used) but anything that would flavor it without changing the nice mellow caramel quality. Leaving it out, I assume, would elimate necessary moisture.

I'm no good at toying with recipes, particularly cake recipes. I assume the easiest cakes to tinker with would be cheesecakes, since they are far more forgiving than cakes with more delicate chemistry. Any suggestions?